In wake of the Virginia Tech tragedy, parents worry about their children and whether UW-Madison would react appropriately if such a dangerous event were to occur here. The UW-Madison system recently started a review of the campus' current security policies and instituted a plan to conduct future reviews to ensure that the campus has a safety plan should one of any number of different scenarios arise.
The university has done a commendable job in their willingness to review safety policies and make necessary changes to bolster student confidence. Dean of Students Lori Berquam assured students in an e-mail that the university will take appropriate measures if an unlikely event, such as that at Virginia Tech, should arise. There are, however, measures that students and parents alike can take to reinforce safety on campus.
Student awareness is another method of preparedness that is helpful to increase safety on campus. Students and teachers at Virginia Tech had concerns about the shooter prior to the tragedy, but few acted upon those concerns, and the administration failed to take preventative action. The shooter had a long and documented history of mental illness, and hindsight suggests that an intervention may have prevented the killings.
Students must pay attention to their friends and people close to them in order to make sure that there are no internal issues that may manifest themselves as violent action, especially against fellow students. Having a proactive stance toward helping friends in a mental crisis is helpful to the community as well as the individual. While students and parents worry about what the university plans to do in the event of a dangerous situation, the parents and students have the ability to avert these situations before they occur.
Between the university's plans and increased student awareness, there are no more measures that the university can take to prevent any number of catastrophic scenarios without changing the daily lives of students. While there are no guarantees that UW-Madison will not be the victim of an attack, students and parents should feel confident that the university is taking every reasonable measure possible to prevent this sort of situation in the future.
